With Silver Spoon Under Tongue
by Sugar Magic
Summary: An unthinkable, terrifying, desperate chance comes in the form of a curious partner and two-hundred dollars in cash.


"Christ, man, how do you just take cuts like this and not make a sound? Damn, this sucker is deep."

"Hurm."

You feel the bite of the needle into your skin, the beginning of its journey along the long gash down your shoulder. Nite Owl is looming above you, needle holder and forceps in hand. You don't know why he insists on closing wounds like this. Much easier just to use your hands.

You shift your head, resting it more comfortably on your crossed arms. You're on your stomach, one sleeve off and the corner of your shirt pulled away to give your partner access to the cut. The injury was a stupid mistake, very careless, but tonight's patrol had gone badly and you'd seen Nite Owl on his back, shielding his face from punches like a bullied child on the playground, and it had panicked you, scared you into barreling in with no forethought. You had thrown the kid, heard the sound of his skull hitting the brick, but hadn't seen the shining and simple army knife glint out behind you. Nite Owl had grabbed the hand you extended to haul him up, and then your shoulder had whetted with sudden shocking pain. The agony made your hand seize and clamp down so hard on Nite Owl's that he grunted and pulled away.

The pair of you dealt with the group easily anyway. Some upstart gang calling themselves the Duckies, inexperienced and juvenile. Nite Owl did most of the work; you were sloppy in your attacks from the pain, not quite blinding but very intense. It made you vomit later on the Owlship, quiver and cough humiliatingly, and Daniel has rubbed up and down your back like a mother would to her ill child. Through the blur of adrenaline it had been comforting, physically, and you never should have allowed it.

A hypodermic needle penetrates a muscle in your back, and the fluid stings as it is forced inside. Lidocaine, always lidocaine, what he uses because it's easy to find and legal to possess. He doesn't bother telling you what it is anymore because you know, know from experience and a thousand injections under your skin.

Partners for how long? It must be at least four years. Roughly fifty-one months, you believe, but it feels untrue because it seems that Nite Owl has always been there. He hasn't, of course – you can remember leaving cuts open in places you couldn't reach. Those incidents created the worst of your scars, badly infected damages that disappeared slowly. Gone now, those times in which you patrolled alone, and they feel so far away it seems in your mind as if they never happened.

You shift your head again when Nite Owl drags a wet cloth down the wound. You can feel his fingers, just barely, despite the lidocaine and chilled fabric. Still, the light sensation makes you shiver irrationally and let a breath out your nose slowly. In the peripherals of your vision you can see him moving, detect his tight-lipped concentration, and if you strained your eyes you could see his face. He must be almost done by now. And indeed, you only need to wait a few more seconds before you hear the sound of metal clinking on metal and the cloth swipes over your skin again.

"Twenty-one stitches, man." He sighs, drops a hand on your opposite shoulder companionably and squeezes lightly. It makes the back of your neck burn. You stand quickly and your head swims, dizzy from standing too fast and the drugs and nothing else. You roll your arm back into your sleeve and turn away from Nite Owl to button it up quickly, grabbing for your vest and coat.

"Thank you, Nite Owl. See you tomorrow night." You plant your fedora back on your head, slide your hands into your pockets, and roll your shoulders once, acclimating to the restriction of the stitches, and then start down the tunnel.

"You're just going to patrol with a three inch gash down your back?" You keep walking, don't look at him, and fight the strange growing strain in your gut when he snorts with amusement. "Stupid question, huh?" You can hear the smile in his voice. "Night, Rorschach."

"Goodnight, Nite Owl," you grumble. Behind you, he shuffles, likely cleaning up the instruments and your blood. You lengthen your steps slightly, uncomfortable. The sound of him fades off, leaving you with only the noises of kicking dust and the dim sense of the city above you. Even here, you can detect the vile decay. At the end of path, you hurried change into your disguise in the lightless warehouse, the lidocaine still stiff in your muscles. You think very little on the way back home.

At the start of your street a whore greets you with flourished chafing breasts, reddened skin and thick blue make-up. She's disgusting, a dirty wasted detrimental life squirming like a sick rat in the gutter. You side-step her because you learned long ago that it's wasted effort to try to eradicate them individually. One must take down their employers. Later, later.

Your apartment building leers at you under dying street lamps, adorned with a twitchy drug addict on the steps - an ugly woman with bruises on her veins and dirty hair. You turn towards the fence lining the alley that leads to the fire escape. You shouldn't, because there is no reason to and such behavior is suspicious and strange, but a sense of claustrophobia is pressing down and you want to take the concealed way, your safe way. Up the rusting ladder, across the roof, down the side wall and slide into the window of your reeking apartment. Practiced, remembered. You watch the motionlessness of your messy room for a moment before letting yourself down off the windowsill. It is then that you realize that the unclean flesh between your legs is thickened, chafing against the fabric of your underwear. You're hard.

Your stomach twists with nausea, your heart pounds too loud. Not concerning, a typical response to a withdrawal of adrenaline. Blood returns to constricted vessels in a rush, chemical reaction, normal and unfortunately frequent. Nothing to do with Nite Owl's fingers tracing down your back or his assuaging grip on your shoulder. Nothing to do with that.

And, desperately, you want that to be true, but your body is buzzing with more than just relocating blood. More with memories and pushed-down thoughts and lusts, impure and corrupted lusts that have been festering inside you and for months now. You pace and shake your head hard like a caged animal – for when you are in this state you are no better than an animal – and it does nothing. You feel trapped, your whole body aching with the shame. Thoughts of Nite Owl are entering your mind unbidden: You think of him smirking at a criminal and licking sweat from the corners his lips in the Nest. The erection between your legs throbs with your pulse. You grimace, wrinkle your nose in disgust, thoughts still on your partner, flop onto your bed and reach down. You grip just below the plump head, but not for pleasure, never that. Instead you force the offence between your legs and crush it between your thighs.

You squeeze your eyes shut against the agony, hissing with it, but it's more than enough pain to force down your perversion. The shaky aftermath of brief and intense pain coerces you to paralysis, but the feeling of blood dissipating back into your body is relieving enough to make it worth it. In your mind, your partner coughs, doubled up, and you claw your hands in the bare mattress, arching up slightly because you need to move. You stir restlessly, mind ablaze with Nite Owl and combat and lingering, churning wants that have no lucidity, but you stay soft, squirm like a fly larva and will yourself towards sleep. You close your eyes, slap your hands to the bed to keep them still, and wait.

When you open your eyes again, the sun is making the buildings past your window glare gold and nebulous memories of a monochromatic animal are fleeing from your mind. Your shoulder aches with the feelings of healing and strain, and you lie on your back to watch the ceiling for a few seconds – empty-headed and dumb - before you stand. You don't have throw a blanket off yourself because you don't have one. Bits of accumulated grime on the floor stick to your feet as you walk.

There is nothing, literally nothing to eat in your apartment and you don't have money for anything, not food nor rent nor flashlight batteries. Pay day is in two weeks. You're considering Daniel's already. Your partner's home is always full of everything, any commodity for a comfortable life, and you know if you intrude, Daniel won't have the motivation or courage to stop you from piling up his leftovers, gulping them down, and leaving the dirtied dishes and take-out boxes scattered around the room. You're fairly certain Daniel would even tolerate you in his home for a few weeks - in the guest room with the wide twin bed - should you be evicted from your current residence. An appreciation you refuse to express warms you, and though you know Daniel would only ask you in with the prompting of pity, it's more than anyone else has ever offered and more than you would otherwise dare to expect.

At your dirty, stinking sink, you select a half-clean glass and fill it, the suspect water of your neighborhood foaming slightly as it splashes against the walls of the cup. You wait for the bubbles at the top to dissipate, watching the tiny pockets of air caught on the surface rupture and escape, and then down it as fast as you can. The cold water hits your empty stomach hard. The water has grassy taste and a dull ache is spawned by sudden internal temperature change. Even so, uncomfortable is usually better than hungry. It's a cheap trick to play on your body, but you gulp down three more piercing cold glasses before you wipe your mouth with the back of your arm. You're still in your disguise from last night, so you only need to shrug into your wool coat before you leave. You'll shave tomorrow; you don't have anyone to impress. Your door creaks loudly on its hinges.

The hallway reeks of urine and marijuana, and the discolored carpet is displaying a new stain. It's 11:13 and there are still three hours before work. Daniel will likely be out, bird watching in a chosen park for the benefit of an article he's writing to some publication or another. His house is far from the factory where you work, but you'll be able to make it there and back if you stop in only for food. You need the meal, and there is some potential that Daniel will be there, to pour peroxide on your stitches and make a late pot of coffee. You can admit that you enjoy spending time with him, which is right and appropriate because he is your partner. You're allowed to feel at ease in his decadent home because you're both fighting for the same cause, both trying to right injustices in an unjust world. If there is anyone you should actually want to be around, it's him. This is the reason, and you have enough will to prevent your body from pervading that. It will pass.

The threadbare carpet gives way to stairs, to a decaying wood door, and then to pavement. Dirty, greasy, pavement that doesn't remember what it is to be clean. Daniel's house is ten blocks away. It's too close, much too close to your moribund little neighborhood, and it draws you like a wasp to a flower with unnecessary indulgent comforts, with Daniel's easy presence and trust. You know it's foolish to enjoy that, because it could grow into something near dependency someday, and still you savor it as ancient Greeks savored grapes, decadent and hedonistic. You should stay away from him, and you won't because you can't.

You follow your well-known path, the one you take now that you've decided to meet Nite Owl in the Nest before patrols. You pass grimy citizens and tawdry whores, but the further you go, the closer to the better part of town, where Daniel lives you get the streets and the civilians start looking better. Slowly, trash bin fires and stray litter reduces for bookshops and rich restaurants that smell of oils and fats. The sidewalks are still dirty, but you hear honking cars and inane chatter instead of yowling children and public sex, and it's a relief.

Near now. You recognize the faux-French coffee shop, full of pretension and liberalist homosexual art students who think that they know about pain. Rich plump businessmen are leaning over plastic cups, straight into the breasts of their female company. You spare them barely a glance, but when you do, familiar soft features and neat brown hair shine out from the rest of the coffee shop faces. Daniel. Daniel is sitting there, with a young woman at the table. You stop your march.

It's strange to see him out here in the open pollution. You had irrationally imagined Daniel's daily life was spent in hibernation, away from the filth of the day city, but he's here, with a woman you didn't know about in a phony store selling over-priced coffee that tastes much worse than what Daniel brews himself.

It's rare that you see him out of uniform; you try - not hard enough but you do - to avoid encounters excluding business. It's not what you want, but it's what's appropriate, and that has always superseded petty inclinations. Daniel is smiling at the woman in the chair opposite him, sipping at a plain white mug. He's in a worn and wooly brown sweater that hides his physique, makes him look fat and typical. Clever - more difficult to connect Nite Owl to him that way. He's saying something and you can't hear his voice, but the lady laughs keenly and lays a hand over his. Your chest hurts and you don't know why. You don't want to know why.

You start walking again, stupid to have lingered at all. You're not looking at him, your behavior is suspicious enough already, but when you pass in front of his little round table you can feel his chocolate candy eyes on you. You resist looking, ignore his obvious scrutiny. He doesn't know. To him, you are just another vagabond. Another dirty drop in the cesspool. You could be anyone.

And yet from behind you Daniel is bidding goodbye to his lady friend. You hear his chair scrape against cement and footsteps, footsteps because he's following you. You turn on your heel rapidly, and the footsteps follow. Eventually, they catch you, and Daniel has headed you off, standing in front of you, forcing you to halt.

"Hi." Daniel is smiling at you sincerely and with familiarity, and for a horrifying second, you think he knows who you are. But the smile slips off his face as you look at him straight on, saying nothing, showing nothing on your face. His posture shifts into unease. He clears his throat and looks down.

"Are you busy?" he asks, like you're a friend he would like to join for lunch. You grunt and try to move away. He heads you off again with a sidestep, and you glare at the expensive silver watch wrapped around his wrist so you don't have to look at him in the face. Don't want to risk discovery. Daniel clears his throat again.

"Listen, um, I was wondering… I, uh, would like some, y'know, company this afternoon and… Um, I live just over there. I've got two-hundred in cash. At the, uh, house, that is." He points towards the direction his attractive expensive brownstone, and before you can announce that it's incredibly stupid to reveal the location of your home to a stranger what he is asking for crashes into you like a wild bull. It avalanches over you with cold crushing depth, surreal and final, and 'no, no, no, no, no, not him' is traipsing back and forth over your mind. 'Not Daniel.'

"Prostitution is illegal," is all you can think of, and it's what tumbles from your mouth, albeit monotonously. His face blooms red like a late spring poppy, and the deserved shamed looks beautiful on him. Daniel knows this is wrong, this is dirty, and he isn't - at least in this - like the sweating, adulterous men that lurked around your mother. Still, you shouldn't forgive him. You should resent him forever, you should hurt him. Make him pay for propositioning whores. He is sinning, making the city vile and corrupt, betraying your cause – the cause you share as partners. You feel sick and he shuffles his feet.

And still this is Daniel – naïve, gentle, trusting Daniel – peering at you with unsure embarrassed eyes, wanting you to come into his home for homosexual sex. He is a good man in moral lapse. In a moment of sexual frustration resulting in weakness. You can reconcile this. Even you have woken twisted in sheets and panting, wanting something amorphous with your heart pulsing between your thighs. Then your mind goes to the man who is in front of you now, and you have to push your blood-think wants between your legs and smother forcefully until the pain out-weighs the desire and you can roll onto your back and sleep. Daniel wouldn't choose that course of action. Daniel would -

"Look, I… know. It's just that I haven't, y'know, been with anyone for…" Daniel peers up at you again, and you're glaring, trying to repel him. It works. "Oh, hell, look, just forget about it. Sorry, I just thought-"

"Thought what?" you growl, stepping in on him, trying for intimidation. You know it will probably fail; intimidation has never had much effect on Nite Owl. Still, Daniel presses at the conjunction of his glasses, forcing his spectacles further up his nose in a familiar gesture of nervousness. It occurs to you that you've seen it before; on the night Daniel had pulled off his cowl and replaced his goggles with the pair he's wearing now. When you rose to hastily leave, to give him his privacy, he had said it's fine, he trusts you, and his name is Daniel. You had known for months.

"Nothing. Nothing, man. I'm just gonna go." He turns away from you and presses his glasses up again. He starts to walk away and your hand flies out to stop him.

It takes you nearly a minute to realize that yes, you did that, you hand is latched around Daniel's forearm holding him there, and when you do, it stuns you into stupidity. It takes another minute to register Daniel's struggle against your grip, and this awaken you from it. In this moment, Daniel is afraid of you and you are afraid of yourself. You should punish him. You should. Instead, a familiar sensation is simmering inside of you, gaining influence as you watch his face. It makes you squeeze your hand around his arm and it takes control of your voice.

"Okay."

"What?" he asks, still trying to twist away.

"Okay. I'll do it." The sounds of the words are strange, foreign, and it feels as if you're watching this, not actively accepting to engage in prostitution with Daniel Dreiberg, your partner in a war against amorality.

"Okay," he mimics, and the smile returns, though shyly. "Daniel," he says, holding out a hand.

"Walter," you say, before you gain the presence of mind to create a pseudonym. You take his offered hand and squeeze, a familiar gesture you've performed with him many times before. It's possible you hold his grip for too long. When it's over, Daniel starts to walk, and you follow, behind so he can't see you.

Shame has flooded you – or perhaps has always been there – and you think only 'why, why this, why yes?' In your degenerate, smirched heart, you know. You want to lie, make yourself believe you're willing to have sex for money, because that would be better, slightly less depraved, but you can't, too late for that. Money is unimportant, means nothing in your life. You need it for food, rent, and nothing more, and even those can wait indefinitely if this is the option. But Daniel, Daniel asked and will pay you two-hundred dollars cash, more than you make in a month. You're going to have sex with Daniel (the phrase makes blood pound in your ears) for money but also because you want to badly, want him, and know that. You're not sure which is worse.

"Right. We're here." Dan crouches to lift the woven coir welcome mat and retrieve the house key he placed there to deter you from kicking the door in. Stupid. You have told him, rightly, that it is a security risk. Daniel turns the key and lock sticks a bit, forcing to shoulder the door open. You should relieve him of the shoddy lock later.

You stand behind him, hands hidden in pockets, shoulders hunched, and after Daniel has replaced the key under the mat, he holds the door open for you like a gentleman. The wordless sound you make comes from deep in your throat, low and almost emotionless. You step into the house Daniel doesn't know you've been in before, and he follows you, silent and careful. After fussing to lock the door behind him, clearly stalling for time, he leans against it and sighs, closing his eyes and pressing his hands flat against the door as if he had just returned an exhaustingly stressful evening out. You've seen him after nights like that.

"The money," you say, and Daniel looks at you dumbly. The hair at the back of your neck begins to rise.

"Oh! Right, right…" He plucks the two bills from his wallet, apparently forgetting he had told you the money was at the house. You take them, fold the bills long ways once and slide them into an internal pocket. 'Always get the money first,' you remember. Your mother would pour cheap booze in her smeared maw and slur that. 'Get the money before the fuckers run out on you.' Disturbing now that you are taking her advice, heeding the word of a deviant. Whoreson to whore. You grimace, want to spit against the saliva flooding your mouth, and Daniel is still leaning against the door, waiting for you to know what to do. You are meant to start this, to lure Daniel into a haze of physical pleasure and keep him there until he is finished with you, but for all your memories of your childhood spent in the presence of a whore, you cannot fix upon anything that will serve you now. Dread and anticipation swirl together in your gut, shattering shreds of calm you had somehow maintained until now.

For the first time you actually concentrate on trying to remember the behavior your mother around the man that lurked the living room. Roughly you recall the hallway to her room, how she would seize the men who lingered there and mouth their faces like a playful dog. Her craw would catch them by the lips and drag them into her den. Daniel is still watching you carefully, his hands fidgeting near yours, and he's so different from them, better than the amoral irresponsible johns who left their families and came to your mother like stray animals, not knowing the consequences until it was too late. You forcefully turn away from that thought and instead square you stance with determination. You bring your hands up to his shoulder and dig your fingers in, and then you're leaning towards his open face. You are going to kiss him.

The few inches between you suddenly seem infinite and you wonder if your pounding heart will last you, if it will keep you alive or just stop in your chest and let you die on Daniel's spotless rug. You're centimeters apart now, and Daniel's eyes have fluttered closed, his lips parting so slightly that they may have always been that way. Your noses brush together and the angle is wrong so you shift forward a bit, and then your lips are touching, unmoving and closed. You're kissing Daniel and an explosive tingling shock of heat rushes through your body, manifesting your lust so quickly that your head swims and you need to lean into him to keep from slumping to the floor.

Daniel opens his mouth under yours. His arms are snaking around you, slow and reassuring, and it spurs you on enough to let you slowly ease your jaw open and squeeze your eyes shut. His wet tongue is still shocking, but a warm and welcome invasion that makes you pull towards him, winding a hand into his hair. Clean teeth tug gently at your bottom lip, sending a feeling so intense down your spine that the persistent abomination between your legs jerks and pulses hard. Fingers brush at the skin of your abdomen, having somehow popped the buttons of your jacket without you noticing. You can't mind, can't even find it in yourself to be surprised, and instead shiver against the teasing caress. A finger hooks into the mouth of you tie, tugging it loose from around your neck. You can't breathe anymore so you force your mouth away from his and pant into his shoulder.

The button at your collar is undone, and Daniel is undressing you, forcing a shed of layers you would never remove in front of another human being. You have no rational thoughts left, instead working on sense and instinct and the dark look in Daniel's eyes, and you believe that he wants as you want, wants skin pressed together and tangled limbs and sinful noises, less shameful than the actions of the remembered apparitions of your childhood because it's Daniel, Daniel's hands slipping your shirt off your shoulders and letting it fall to the floor.

You bring your quacking hands to his overcoat and struggle with the fastens and buttons there. His hands roam over your body as you work, making the task of opening a jacket far more difficult than it ever should be. When you finally succeed, you're met with another button-up garment. You growl, frustrated, and simply force the shirt open, causing buttons to leap off and scatter on the floor. "Watch it!" he cries, annoyance clear in his voice, and you don't apologize because you're not sorry at all.

Your body is hideous next to his, shrunken with childhood malnourishment and scarred from fights and your mother's cigarettes being snuffed out on your skin. When you slide your knobby crooked hands down his broad chest, it feels like defacement. Daniel kisses you anyway, winding one muscled arm low around your back and pulling you to him. You're flush against him, your hands clamped onto his biceps, and your penis - so impossibly miserably painfully hard – prods at his thigh.

Daniel hisses when you run your thumb over a nipple in curiosity. It's soft and pink as the petals on a rose, and you want your mouth on it. You do it without hesitation, relishing in the way Daniel gasps and fists your dirty hair, because you have nothing to lose anymore. You are both apostates now, both traitorous scum clinging to each other in a libertine haze of sweat and hands and Daniel's tongue. Everything you are burns with this, and you've never wanted to be here, in this fetid state with someone pressed against you, but now – now, here, with your partner clutched close, you can let yourself memorize taste his skin and stagger backward to the couch with eager mouths caressing each other. Of course there is still shame, of course there is, but the heat and the want and the feeling of the hardness against your hip are banishing it quickly to a place you'll wallow in later, but not now.

The pair of you fall onto the familiar couch where you have spent countless nights mulling over evidence and theories, you on top of him, and when his hips snap up to meet yours you cannot help it and grind back. You try to hold him down for better leverage before you realize he's trying to squirm out of his pants. Then you're off of him and struggling with your own belt, desperate because Daniel will soon be completely bared to you, and you'll be able to touch him like you've wanted to for too long if only you can struggle out of this restriction and be freed to let this truly happen.

And then Daniel's khakis are sliding down his thighs, followed by white briefs, and the sight of his thick reddened penis nearly makes you come on the spot. You press your palm to it immediately, the heat and weight of it making your gut twist almost painfully. Daniel groans, his testicles tightening just for a moment. Your own erection twitches with them.

Finally, finally, your zipper yields and you shove your pants down to your thighs because you don't have the patience to get them all the way off. You press your hips to his, and when your sinful organs brush together, a wave of something impossibly good tremors through you, and your already-leaking penis forces out a small gush of a clear, thick substance into Daniel's nest of brown pubic hair. You thrust against him wildly like a dog, sinking teeth into his neck to keep yourself from freeing the wretched sounds building in your chest.

Daniel reaches between your bodies to grip your wrist and guides past and down, to his puckering entrance where he presses your fingers forward. His eyes are closed, face twisted in a wanton grimace. His pelvis moves almost imperceptibly, but you can see it.

You should be revolted, utterly nauseated at the concept of touching someone is such an unclean place, but when you push your index finger in there is nothing but tight fulfilling heat that makes you whimper. You press another in almost immediately. Daniel groans, open-mouthed and straining up against the couch. Your lust is palpable, a cesspool swamping in your gut. You roll and wriggle your fingers inside, wanting to be sheathed inside, to possess Daniel and keep him pressed to you until the filth of the world has rotted away.

You grip yourself by the base and hitch Daniel knees up to your shoulders, giving you a clear and perfect view of your target. You're shaking very, very badly with anticipation and something similar to fear, but you manage to press the slick head to Daniel's entrance. He yowls when you push forward.

"Jesus! Shit, stop, stop, that hurts like hell!" You snarl but obey, wishing he'd just let you, let you do this while you still have the courage. The restraint is almost impossible, but you stop for him. "Just… Just use spit to make it wet or something."

You lick beneath your tongue to summon saliva and let it drip viscously into your palm. Whatever he wants, whatever you can do to make him let you slake this utter need. You rub your wet palm up and down the shaft, your own touch enough to make the urge to strike into Daniel's lean body unbearable.

Again you steady yourself at your target, quaking. You cant your hips and push forward, at first missing and pressing to his perineum, forcing a whine from the both of you. Again, try again, and this time you hit your mark. His body yields to you suddenly and fully.

Smooth, perfect heat envelopes you, and you howl with it, tears appearing in the corners of your eyes. It's too much, far far too much and it takes all your willpower and more not to ram into him, not to take him like he's yours, has always been yours. Your arms wrap tight around his torso to steady yourself, and you know in the back of your consciousness that you're gripping him too harshly.

Daniel moans, arches, flails his arms against your back, digging nails into your skin. You know, despicably and sure, that you'll never forget the way Daniel twisted and groaned under you, looked at you with dilated pupils and half-open mouth. You know that this will invade your dreams forever, that on patrol you'll watch his body move with violent grace and think of this. "Daniel," you murmur, because you can't hold it in.

You claw a hand into his hip and use the other to palm at his erection. Daniel releases a shuddering sigh, throwing his arm over his eyes. The urge to move is serve, irresistible, and you shift just barely but the friction it creates makes your limbs turn to water and your whole body burn. You press forward, deeper, trying to reach Daniel's very core, and you know you're close, very close to tumbling over the precipice like you need to, have to. Still, you manage to keep going, find a rhythm and reigning in the feeling with the best of your ability. Daniel moans from deep in his chest, runs a hand through his hair and arches again. He presses back against you, and your eyes roll back with the pleasure.

"Wal- ah. Walter. Please." He groans, his body tenses under you. This does you in.

Any semblance of control you thought you had is gone, imploded on itself in the wake of Daniel's plea. You hips hammer against him, thrusts furious and deep, the already intense feeling rearing up to consume you. Daniel is moaning under you in time with your movements, and when you can open your eyes again, his are wide and beautiful.

The tension in your body suddenly shatters, exploding into a feeling too perfect, too pure to have had its birth in you. You're spilling into Daniel's body in pulsing cascades, breaking inside him with his hands on the small of your back. You scream. You have no other response. Hot spurts of liquid splash against your abdomen before you collapse into unconsciousness, leaving you barely time to smile when you realize what that means.

Years, days, seconds later you wake with your body slack over his, boneless, warm, and overcome with a full and foreign satisfaction. A hand is stroking though your hair. He's panting. When your vision stops swimming, you look for Daniel's face and find him smiling lightly, content and beautiful and soiled. Never in your life have you felt so unworthy.

The hand on your head travels down, rubbing you neck in a way that makes you incredibly drowsy. You sigh and settle into him, inappropriate for a hired whore but you don't care if the behavior is wrong. You can't let go. The hand continues to wander, to your shoulder, drawing sweat is into the stitches there. You hiss with the feeling of salt in a wound and then the hand freezes over the cut.

You snap your eyes open, because no, anything but not this, he's touching the stitches, the stitches he himself sewed into your skin just last night. You weren't thinking, stupid, stupid, of course it will be obvious now. You sit up abruptly, jolt away from his hands, but it's too late, too late, Daniel's face is shifting with realization and shock. His eyes are very, very wide. No, no, no, no, no.

"Ror-" You punch him. You crack your fist across his plump red mouth to buy yourself time. You try to ignore the wheeze of painful surprise as you vault over the couch and swipe your coat off the floor. You struggle into it as you run, flying down the kitchen stairs and through the tunnel leading to the empty warehouse where you can rot for what you have done to Daniel.

You can hear him running behind you, close. Your feet cut under sharp things left abandon on the floor. You know he will catch you. Still, you run until he grabs you by the arm and staggers you, throws you to the wall and pins you with his body. You kick out at him, desperate, unbearable pain in your chest. Daniel back-hands you, employing a technique he often uses on hysterical criminals. It hurts, but not an eighth as much as what you know is coming will.

"Rorschach," is all he says. It's all he needs to say.

Daniel is utterly nude, hands on either side of your head creating a symmetrical spectral cage of glowing skin and frustration. The dim light of the tunnel reveals something shining wet rolling down his thighs. Your semen. You shudder and close your eyes.

There is no hope for you now. You are damned, deserve it, hope that whatever punishment is received will make you pay for this two-hundred times over and more. Nothing can reverse your betrayal and you can never forget. All you can do now is put off the consequences. Strike first.

"Hiring whores!" you howl. Your sentence structure is breaking down, as it always does when you're very upset. You try to sound dangerous, but your voice is weak even to your own ears. "Disgraceful, Daniel, filthy!"

He barks out a dry laugh that echoes off the walls. "I hired you. This is what you do during the day and then you turn around and rant about hookers and faggots? You're telling me I'm disgraceful when you've been – Christ, Rorschach, how long? How many?"

"Only you!" you bellow, kicking out and trying to force him away. "Only you! Wouldn't – not anyone else!" You're shouting at him because there is too much gravity in this and you hate it, want to punch him again or do something else, anything to purge the swelling loath. "Weren't supposed to –"

"Just shut up, Rorschach," He says. He catches your raving hands midair and twists them down to your sides painfully. "Just shut up." His wide strong hands move to your neck and you assume he's going to strangle you, so you stand perfectly still and wait for it, but they pass your trachea and move on to the back of your head. There they settle and draw you forward, insistent and slow, until your face is pressed to his sternum. You're on the verge of crumbling.

"You should have said something, buddy," he murmurs into your hair. "You didn't have to – I have plenty of money, okay?" He pulls back and holds you at arm's length. He doesn't understand.

"Not that. Wanted you. Wanted to h-" Your voice breaks down, cracking under the degradation, fading into nothing because there's nothing you can say. At least he knows now, can at least understand what you really are.

"Rorschach," he says again, and you wish for a very sudden death. "It's alright."

That sentence almost grants it. Daniel takes a deep breath and lets it out very slowly, very controlled. "I understand. I… do too." Comprehension fails you utterly, and he continues. "That why I – I, uh, wanted to know how it feels… with a man. Seeing the way you move just, um… made me curious, y'know?" Daniel smiles brokenly and runs a hand through his hair. "I knew you would never…" But you did, you did, and that hangs in the air, suffocating you. Misery stabs through you because you are weak, depraved, and you hardly regret it, which makes it much worse.

"Sorry, Daniel, very, very sorry. Shouldn't have. Was weak, failed to – resist desires. Am sorry." Your face is still pressed to him and you can feel laughter rattle in his bare chest.

"Rorschach," he says again, and squeezes the back of your neck. You breathing becomes shallow and your throat stings. "You don't get it, man. I did this because I wanted you." Your eyes burn and your heart speeds up, and Daniel's arms catch you around the torso again, holding you in place. "I wanted you," he repeats and nuzzles his face into your neck.

Slowly, slowly, what he's saying becomes real to you and creates something in your soul so full and complete that it makes your hands shake. You can't understand how he can still want you, could ever have wanted you to begin with. Noble and honorable Daniel wants you, an ugly and whorish and morally supine man. How he can tolerate your presence, how, after what you've done to him? You infected him with perversion, worse yet forced him into action, and still his lips play against your skin. Why, why?

You should push him off, lie and tell him you don't want this. It would save him, keep him safe from you. You know this, that this is what you should do, but Daniel's body is warm and full against yours and you want this so much, want to be tangled with him after patrols and on weekends when you have no work. It's very presumptuous to assume he will still want you tomorrow, but the hope is making you dream that he will, and a firm hand rises to come to grip your hair. For now, for as long as you can preserve this, you will stay, remain, and damn the both of you to a life of sin and amorality. You hate yourself, your infinite weakness. This is wrong.

You have to stand on your toes to kiss him.


End file.
